Dave B
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To VIn I know someone who wrote the computer code for some of the first EPOS and stock control systems used in the UKin the late 1980’s. I asked if they would still work if they set all the prices to zero and she said they would; or the ones she wrote would. Although despite being a communist she said that she didn’t really write them with that in mind. On Socialist Punks query Stalin pulled out some useful ones in 1906. http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/AS07.html#c3
The extended eating weasels and oral sex translation, I found it!; http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/barnabas-roberts.html
It would appear that some of the early Christians had some restrictive dietary practices eg THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS from 132AD Neither shalt thou eat," says he "the eagle, nor the hawk, nor the kite, nor the raven." "Thou shalt not join thyself," he means, "to such men as know not how to procure food for themselves by labour and sweat, but seize on that of others in their iniquity, and although wearing an aspect of simplicity, are on the watch to plunder others." So these birds, while they sit idle, inquire how they may devour the flesh of others, proving themselves pests [to all] by their wickedness. "And thou shalt not eat," he says, "the lamprey, or the…………. And on the David Cameron theme; Nor weasels on account of their notorious habit of practicing oral sex! , he has rightly detested the weasel. For he means, "Thou shalt not be like to those whom we hear of as committing wickedness with the mouth, on account of their uncleanness; nor shall thou be joined to those impure women who commit iniquity with the mouth. For this animal conceives by the mouth." (The weasel thing is dropped from some available translations but is widely discussed elsewhere.- I have the full extended translation but no link) Other communist stuff also appears in this document eg; 8 Thou shalt share all things with thy neighbour and shall not say that they are thy own property; for if you are sharers in that which is incorruptible, how much more in that which is corruptible? Thou shalt not be forward to speak, for the mouth is a snare of death. So far as thou canst, thou shalt keep thy soul pure. It is a very old and well provenanced document and widely cited in pre 4th century material. There is actually a hard 4th century copy ( 325-360) as part of the dated codex Sinaticus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Sinaiticus I am sure some off us will scoff at our early David Attenborough ‘Barnabas’ but that kind of thing was quite common amongst the educated and intellectual Greeks at the time. Although I am only assuming that weasels don’t perform Fellatio although bats do apparently; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_sex That was a hazardous even wiki google search; I am sure the NSA has recorded it.
They did a brief Orhpeus theme on radio four last week that reminded me of it and I had been dicussing Ovid narcissus and stirner egotism a bit before that 'elsewhere'.
I think self described Marxists also have there own tradition of blood sacrifices don’t they? I think the feast of sacrifice is derived from one of the many obnoxious stories in the old testament eg; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_al-Adha#cite_note-2 Although Islam or the Quran can be quite selective as to its interpretation of old testament material. For instance the story of Lot, as role model, has quite a high profile in the Quran. Lot is visited by some attractive looking male angels whom the neighbours wish to rape. Lot suggest that they rape his virgin daughters instead. Later on Lot and his daughters go off and live in a cave or something and the sexually frustrated daughters get Lot, their dad drunk, and rape him instead. Although it is presented as pro-creational rather than just recreational sex. However; "The allegation of drunkenness and incestuous behaviour of Lot is completely rejected in Islam, and he is regarded as one of the messengers of Allah (God) who was an example of moral and spiritual rectitude." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lot_(biblical_person) I can only remember one passage in the Quran about alcohol and that just seemed to say it was a bad idea to get pissed. Maybe I missed something or there was other stuff in the last 20% . I think the early Christians were relatively unique in abandoning concepts of animal sacrifices etc and got into trouble for just that. In fact it is hardly believable today but for their time they were the relative anti mumbo jumbo-ists. Amazingly some of the second century ones, like Origen, come across as rational sceptics when it comes to ‘magic’ and discussed rationally, as tricks, some of the amazing ‘David Blaine’ stuff you could see in the market place in Alexandria; including mass hypnosis etc. The standard blood and guts dying bod on the cross and the crucifix stuff didn’t appear in Christian iconography until the 4th century. [Incidentally there is quite a lot of seemingly unconnected Judiac and very early Christian material that suggests that JC was crucified on a ‘tree’.] Early Christian iconography appeared as the symbol of the fish which is presumed to be an acronym and was used as a kind of Masonic handshake. They would doodle half of it as just a wavy line and the other would complete it or something. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthys The other pre 4th century iconography was Jonah images and Orpheus ones. A lot of these more intelligent and better read atheists and students of Christianity eg Richard Carrier think that Christianity is a reworking of certain Egyptian and Greek myths etc. But I find it a bit strange because they seem to select some unlikely examples like Mithras etc which other atheists scholars like Bart Erhman have done a good job of debunking it as not a very good fits. I think the Orpheus story is a good fit, certainly contemporary with Ovid doing a cover version of it around 30AD, and ‘archaeological’ evidence of Christian ‘iconography’. Although you have to understand that JC went to down to hell for three days to get that bit. http://www.home2b.nl/home2b-ancient-christianity/ancient-christianity-orpheus-relation.html The Marcionites, ‘my kind’ of early Christians, thought that the old testament was a load of shit and were against martyrdom, preferring to stay alive and develop their religious consciousness. I still think that early Christianity was a class analysis developed within a metaphysical framework which was the only framework at the time.
One thing that I found interesting about the Islamic religion ‘as we see it’ is that it is pretty much unrecognizable from reading the Quran (I read through about 80% of it before getting bored) . In fact one bod got into real trouble recently from just about all muslim sects for saying all you need is the Quran and you should be able or should base your muslim faith just on that. He was of course Fatwa-ed and apostasied for that. Most of the Islamic religion comes from the ‘post’ Quran Hadiths which are too voluminous to get a handle on, so I gave it up as a project. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadith As we are on Iran and corbynite clause four nationalisation/state capitalism elsewhere. Until very recently, and even still, substantial sections of the Iranian ‘GDP’ has been under state control. Eg As of 2009, Iran has privatized $63 billion worth of government equity in state-owned firms since 2005 (out of $120 billion). Subsequently, the disinvestment has brought the government's direct ownership in the GDP from 80% down to 40%.[1]However, privatization through the boursehas tended to involve the sale of state-owned enterprises to other state actors such as pension funds.[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization_in_Iran I suppose this is the Islamic/Iranian model that so appals the so called feudal gulf states. It looks a bit like theological Bolshevism with a dose of NEP. Islam is formally an Abrahamic 'monotheistic ’ religion, sharing its acceptance of much of the ‘old testament’ and even JC as a kind of prophet etc. Mohamed was supposed to have had christian slave and there is a bit of eccentric christianity in the Quran including stuff from the infancy gospel of Thomas which was popular in that area at the time and didn’t make it into the cannon. The christians went wrong in crypto creeping polytheism with the holy trinity and not accepting Mohamed as a prophet, and the last one at that. Shia’s crime is that they are a little bit too much into the idea of ‘saint-hood’ with their shrines and martyrs etc etc. I think it is reasonable to compare the difference to the the one in the 17th century between radical Protestantism and Catholicism. Shia’s theology of ‘saint-hood’ and ‘idol worship’ etc also appears to some ‘sunni’s’ as another form of crypto creeping polytheism; hence the Saudi’s and Isis enthusiasm for bulldozing and blowing up holy sites and mosques. Another part of it is a succession thing a bit like the papacy, saint Peter and upon this rock I will build my Vatican thing. With Islam it is too complicated to explain. Well that is my take on it anyway.
There is another issue as regards not for profit state capitalism as surplus value is always split up into a consumption fund for the capitalist class and accumulation of further capital or re-investment. I suppose a state capitalist industry like the railways could operate without providing a dividend to the capitalist class whilst still extracting surplus value from the workers which would manifest itself as re-investment etc. If it did make a ‘net profit’ I suppose it would go to the government to offset the cost of the administration of capitalism which otherwise would come out of the general capitalists surplus value from other channels. V. I. Lenin Plan of an Article “Commercial Organisation”[4] (ε) Should pay for itself.c + v + ss — accumulation —maintenance of the statehttps://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/oct/x01.htm#fwV42P358F02
I think an ‘orthodox’ Marxist analysis of state capitalism operating within a mature bourgeois capitalist state is that it can be beneficial to the general capitalist class within it. Even when it is not run for profit. Thus if it is not run at a profit then its products or services are made available at the lower cost of the ‘cost of production’ rather at the ‘higher price of production’. The difference being the surplus value or profit formally expected from the amount of invested capital in the nationalised industries etc. These lower priced ‘products or services’ will then either be purchased with workers wages or purchased by the general capitalists as part of their raw materials or constant capital. Eg energy supply, water, transport etc. The profit that is ‘surrendered’ by the nationalised industries is then transferred to the general national bourgeois class from lower wages and raw materials. Some of these national products and services are all too obviously better run as integrated national monopolies. Or in other words have the potential to be provided at much lower cost as such. Healthcare is one such example; eg in the US per capita expenditure on healthcare is much higher than say in Canada or Europe whilst its quality in general is lower. Producing services and products from national non profit state capitalist industries may work OK providing capitalist from other nations don’t consume the product and have its surplus value transferred to themselves. Or get it on the cheap. Eg their workers skipping over the border for free healthcare or, going in the other direction, workers with ‘invested’ and subsidised education or training skipping off to somewhere else. I think the capitalist class’s objection to nationalisation is often primarily ideological. They have a tendency to view it as ‘creeping socialism’ in the same way as the Corbynites do. I think historically, as in Germany in the late 19th century, the development of state capitalism was often associated with the economic strategic necessity of developing national industries that then demanded massive initial investment. To catch up with other national competitors who had developed theirs incrementally followed later by agglomeration. Before the full development and globalisation of finance capitalism etc. Lenin’s state capitalism was economically modelled on the German example. Does anybody know the history of clause four as in why it wasn’t clause one or nine? It just that a lot of these early 20th century ‘socialist’ were Christians and the then recently rediscovered early Christian document ‘Didache’ had a common ownership thing in its clause four. I am assuming it was just a coincidence? The early Marxist including Karl advocated nationalisation of agricultural production mainly to get rid of the reactionary petty bourgeois peasantry; as little Thatcherite shopkeepers from Grantham. And fast track them into the working class dispossessed of the means of production.
Anti Corbynite Old Liberal, New Labour, Gordon Brown on his “hero” the Corbynite Keir Hardie. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b068xnly
I think there is another angle to this 'economic migrant', issue about very little is said by the xenophobic little Englanders in the Tory party. The capitalist class are quietly much more liberal when it comes to skilled, or what really matters higher paid, economic migrants. In those cases they operate an almost open door policy. If price of some concrete labour power as a commodity eg computer programming is demanding a relatively high price on the market say circa £25,000 anybody from anywhere, including outside the EU, is ‘allowed in’. With even the opportunity of permanent ‘citizenship’. The ideology of a ‘skills shortage’ is a transparent veil to the real interest of driving down the wages of the ‘indigenous’ members of the skilled working class. A skilled job will be advertised at say £25,000 which used to get no takers due to, if nothing else, the resistance of the skilled workforce, who used to refuse ‘to get out of bed’ for less than £30 per hour and used to think £50 per hour rates in London an insult.I am not one!Many of them used to be 'contractors' and were 'directors' and sole employees of there own companies in the IR45 'disguised employees'; as part of the national issurance PAYE tax and National Inssurance dodge scam.They paid themselves the minimum wage, increasing the profits of the company as it does, and took solace in the generous dividends on thier company's profits, that fortutiously had a lower rate of taxation than income tax. Some of them 10 years ago used to tell me there were not workers but capitalists and had the 40K Mercedes to prove it. I have been told that one tier level has just been raised from 25K to 29K? There is something on the general thing below from a quick google search. http://www.workpermit.com/news/2012-03-23/uk/uk-immigration-changes-6-april-2012-affects-tier-1-2-4-visas-apply-now.htm It works quite well in practice in another way for the capitalist employers apparently, as if you pack your job in or get terminated you don’t have very long before you get kicked out the country again. Which sort of focuses the mind somewhat for the workers who come from outside the EU. The unskilled economic migrants are a somewhat different issue. They are likely to be getting a minimum wage which can’t be driven down any further and thus theoretically they are likely to just displace ‘indigenous’ unskilled workers into the expensive social insecurity net. However it can result in the general ‘market’ increase in the intensity of minimum wage labour eg split shifts cleaning jobs and running around like a blue arsed fly in restaurant jobs etc. As German economic migrants of the 1950’s has been mentioned there was something related to it re skilled labour in volume III of capital I think. The universality of public education enables capitalists to recruit such labourers from classes that formerly had no access to such trades and were accustomed to a lower standard of living. Moreover, this increases supply, and hence competition. With few exceptions, the labour-power of these people is therefore devaluated with the progress of capitalist production. Their wage falls, while their labour capacity increases. The capitalist increases the number of these labourers whenever he has more value and profits to realise. The increase of this labour is always a result, never a cause of more surplus-value. How well this forecast of the fate of the commercial proletariat, written in 1865, has stood the test of time can be corroborated by hundreds of German clerks, who are trained in all commercial operations and acquainted with three or four languages, and offer their services in vain in London City at 25 shillings per week, which is far below the wages of a good machinist. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch17.htm#2a
I think the Corbyn thing is more of a reaction to the cynical ‘men in suits’ politicians that we have been suffering under for the last 30 years. I think many of the working class have realised that these people, in particular those in the labour party, are self serving careerists coached in expressive hand waving body language to create the illusion of sincerity and honesty etc. Epitomised by Tony Bliar himself. I think they realise that they have been ‘had’ and have rediscovered there ability to recognise and ‘appreciate’ sincerity and integrity. I don’t think you have to follow Corbyns political programme to believe that he is ‘sincere’ or ‘honest’. Rolling out 'men in suits’ people like Jack Straw, Tony himself and Gordon Brown for instance to dish him, in that respect, is probably having the opposite affect to the one intended. And it may be not much more than a poke in the eye and political revenge against the ‘men in suits’ who have duped you and made you look foolish. [It was even starting to ‘work’ on me at an emotive level.] Incredibly Gordon Brown recently ‘recalled’ the memory of Keir Hardie to bring the Corbynites to their senses with his; "Labour, he said, had to become electable if it was to make any difference to people's lives. It is a lesson that some who see themselves as Hardie's heirs might do well to recall." http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13637711.Gordon_Brown__Keir_Hardie_was_Labour_s_greatest_hero/ The Brownite clause four mind boggles; Keir Hardie Speech to the House of Commons 1901 We are rapidly approaching the point when the nation will be called upon to decide between an uncontrolled monopoly conducted for the benefit and in the interests of its principal shareholders, and a monopoly owned, controlled and manipulated by the state in the interests of the nation as a whole. I do not require to go far afield for arguments to support that part of my statement concerning the danger which the application of wealth in a few hands is bringing upon us. This House and the British nation know to their cost the danger which comes from allowing men to grow rich and permitting them to use their wealth to corrupt the press, to silence the pulpit, to degrade our national life, and to bring reproach and shame upon a great people, in order that a few unscrupulous scoundrels might be able to add to their ill-gotten gains. The war in South Africa is a millionaires' war. The troubles in China are due to the desire of the capitalists to exploit the people of that country, as they would fain exploit the people of South Africa. Much of the jealousy and bad blood existing between this country and France is traceable to the fact that we went to war in Egypt to suppress a popular uprising, seeking freedom for the people, in order that the interests of our bond-holders might be secured. Socialism, by placing the land and the instruments of production in the hands of the community, eliminates only the idle, useless class at both ends of the scale. Half a million of the people of this country benefit by the present system; the remaining millions of toilers and business men do not. The pursuit of wealth corrupts the manhood of men. We are called upon at the beginning of the 20th century to decide the question propounded in the Sermon on the Mount, as to whether we will worship God or Mammon. The present day is a Mammon worshipping age. Socialism proposes to dethrone the brute god Mammon and to lift humanity into its place. I beg to submit, in this very imperfect fashion, the resolution on the paper, merely promising that the last has not been heard the Socialist movement either in the country or on the floor of this House, but that, just as sure as radicalism democratised the system of government politically in the last century, so will socialism democratise the country industrially during this century upon which we just entered. http://www.archive.8m.net/hardie.htm
I think it is interesting when some capitalists themselves say that most members of their own class are sociopaths/psychopaths, can’t remember which term he used exactly; it is a fairly interesting interview in general as I remember it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05ndjm9 Then on a sort of class analysis? There is mirror neuron research with the bit more technological scientific procedure of watching bits of the brain lighting up in CAT scan type machines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron The theory/conclusion, in respect to the more specific topic of this discussion, is I think that; when Peter objectively observes Paul in a ‘particular situation’, Paul’s brain automatically ‘google’ searches his own memory bank for a pattern recognition ‘match’ from his own personal experience. The recalled best fit memory automatically also pulls out with it Paul’s memory of his own ‘emotional state’, that has also been filed away with it. So much for intellectual theory, is it true? When you remember/recall ‘factual’ stuff does the associated emotional memory automatically, as a ‘reflex reaction’, and unasked for, sort of come with it? Or; Do you actually automatically, as too fast to rationally stop it, actually wince when you see someone hurt themselves? Eg. I suspect people who have been hit in the bollocks by a cricket ball would wince more when seeing it happen to another. But then again perhaps the mere quantitative extrapolation of some lesser personal experience is sufficient to get a reasonable qualitative understanding of the experience, and that you can sort of ‘fill in’ to get a better ‘understanding’ of what has just occurred. Which might be useful in a more general sense, it is after all just information which perhaps later can be assessed or analysed in a more rational way. The quantitative extrapolation of some lesser personal experience is important I think. I haven’t faced the ‘exact word or phrase’ google advanced search engine experience of Syrian refugees. But just like I have been crunched in the bullocks once with a lacrosse ball whilst wearing ‘protection’, I have experienced a ‘close match’ of economic insecurity etc etc. I think abstracting from a personal experience, like an ‘apple falling from a tree’, and generalising and expanding it is part of the ‘human condition’. But in sympathy for the Imelda Marcos capitalist class and ‘let them eat cake’ what happens if they don’t even have some starting reference point to extrapolate from of being ‘crunched in the bullocks once with a lacrosse ball whilst wearing ‘protection’? I think the arch conservative Michael Portillo to his credit allowed himself to be very gently thumped in the bollocks when he agreed to live in a house of the poor working class for a week as part of a TV programme. It sort of worked after a fashion.
I think the word sociopath is often misused; and are better off starting of with the formal definition? The term sociopathy may have been first introduced in 1909 in Germany by biological psychiatrist Karl Birnbaumand in 1930 in the US by educational psychologist George E. Partridge, as an alternative to the concept of psychopathy.[156]It was used to indicate that the defining feature is violation of social norms, or antisocial behavior, and has often also been associated with postulating social as well as biological causation. Thus I think it is a bit problematic saying that conservatives violate social norms; new social norms perhaps but hardly old ones? Sociopathy is related to psychopathy which is perhaps is where it gets interesting? Psychopathy…………also known as—though sometimes distinguished from—sociopathy, is traditionally defined as a personality disordercharacterized by enduring antisocial behavior, diminished empathyand remorse, ……….. I think we can intellectually ignore “antisocial behavior” as subjective and another circular variation of ‘violation of social norms’. So a psychopath is an egoist (as differentiated from subjective egotism) who feels no, and does not believe in, empathy and remorse , and things like ‘justice’. Psychopathic and thus rational egoists [ eg orthodox SPGB?] are not automatically ‘anti-social’ or for that matter insane monsters locked up in Broadmoor etc. That become only obvious as such, in the vulgar interpretation, when they also have incidentally ‘irrational’, ‘dysfunctional’ and ‘antisocial’ ‘neurotic’ urges and drives which are not checked or held under control by empathy, remorse and ‘feelings of justice’. And when they feel they can get away with fulfilling them without discovery and social sanctions which would act against their rational egoistic interests; they do so. Psychopaths may in fact pursue and act out what we would consider ‘dysfunctional’ behaviour? like sending children into the gas chamber etc, without themselves getting any personal sadistic satisfaction from it, of itself. Not doing so in particular circumstances for the egoistic psychopath would seem ‘anti-social’ and irrational as far as his egoistic interests are concerned. I think the real question as it is probably meant is are ‘conservatives’ emotional sadists in the sense of that they get not material and purely emotional pleasure in and from the suffering of others. Maybe some of them do. But the exploitative capitalist is mostly a rational egoist and pursues material pleasures as the end through the suffering of others and injustice which for them is just the means to obtain it, left unfettered and encumbered by empathy and ‘justice’ etc. The psychoanalyst people will say that ‘sadism’ is displaced and transferred deferred revenge etc. As the Ferengi said in star trek; ‘there is no profit in revenge’. A recent study on psychopaths found that under certain circumstances, they could willfully empathize with others, and that their empathic reaction initiated the same way it does for controls. Psychopathic criminals were brain-scanned while watching videos of a person harming another individual. The psychopaths' empathic reaction initiated the same way it did for controls when they were instructed to empathize with the harmed individual, and the area of the brain relating to pain was activated when the psychopaths were asked to imagine how the harmed individual felt. The research suggests how psychopaths could switch empathy on at will, which would enable them to be both callousand charming. The team who conducted the study say it is still unknown how to transform this willful empathy into the spontaneous empathy most people have, though they propose it could be possible to bring psychopaths closer to rehabilitation by helping them to activate their "empathy switch". Others suggested that despite the results of the study, it remained unclear whether psychopaths' experience of empathy was the same as that of controls, and also questioned the possibility of devising therapeutic interventions that would make the empathic reactions more automatic.[68][69] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Sociopathy
Ironically I think one of the best analyses of what Marx meant by socialism with citations and quotations from Marx himself to back up his argument came from Stalin in 1906. Stalin also clearly uses socialism and communism interchangeably to such an extent the he uses a fraudulent insert into a Karl quotation. IIIPROLETARIAN SOCIALISM http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/AS07.html#c3 There is also the context of Anarchism. I think the basic thrust of the article is that the final objectives of [Kropotkinist] anarchism and Marxist socialism are the same. And that Kropotkinist suspicions that the methodology of ‘Marxism’ ‘would arrive at state capitalism ….’. Was ‘mere tittle-tattle devoid of all foundation’. Although the Marxist critique of orthodox or Bakuninist anarchism involved other things. Orthodox or Bakuninist anarchism was accused of by orthodox Marxism of basically ‘vanguardism’ which in the Anarchist camp, as perceived by Marxists, came under the Bakuninist ‘secret brotherhood’ modus operandi or label. The ‘Marxist’ variation of the ‘secret brotherhood’ had been ‘before Lenin’ historically ‘Blanquism’. Thus the Mensheviks in one place accused the Bolshevik vanguardism of Blanquism and Bakuninism in one sentence. But I suppose that is just about organisational political methodology etc. The other fundamental, and historically ironic, difference between Bakuninist anarchism and Marxism was the attitude to the possibility of achieving ‘communism’ or stateless socialism in a backward country before or without the full prior mature development of capitalism, in particular Russia. Or stageism. Karl said no. Schoolboy stupidity! A radical social revolution depends on certain definite historical conditions of economic development as its precondition. It is also only possible where with capitalist production the industrial proletariat occupies at least an important position among the mass of the people. And if it is to have any chance of victory, it must be able to do immediately as much for the peasants as the French bourgeoisie, mutatis mutandis, did in its revolution for the French peasants of that time. A fine idea, that the rule of labour involves the subjugation of land labour! But here Mr Bakunin's innermost thoughts emerge. He understands absolutely nothing about the social revolution, only its political phrases. Its economic conditions do not exist for him. As all hitherto existing economic forms, developed or undeveloped, involve the enslavement of the worker (whether in the form of wage-labourer, peasant etc.), he believes that a radical revolution is possible in all such forms alike. Still more! He wants the European social revolution, premised on the economic basis of capitalist production, to take place at the level of the Russian or Slavic agricultural and pastoral peoples, not to surpass this level […] The will, and not the economic conditions, is the foundation of his social revolution. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04/bakunin-notes.htm Lenin at this point in 1905 was also against the Anarchist position; which was shared in that respect with the SR position If Social-Democracy sought to make the socialist revolution its immediate aim (in Russia) , it would assuredly discredit itself. It is precisely such vague and hazy ideas of our “Socialists—Revolutionaries” that Social-Democracy has always combated. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/apr/12b.htm Again one of the best short and pithy descriptions of communism comes from the Bolsheviks. V. I. Lenin, From the Destruction of the Old Social System, To the Creation of the New Communist labour in the narrower and stricter sense of the term is labour performed gratis for the benefit of society, labour performed not as a definite duty, not for the purpose of obtaining a right to certain products, not according to previously established and legally fixed quotas, but voluntary labour, irrespective of quotas; it is labour performed without expectation of reward, without reward as a condition, labour performed because it has become a habit to work for the common good, and because of a conscious realisation (that has become a habit) of the necessity of working for the common good—labour as the requirement of a healthy organism. It must be clear to everybody that we, i.e., our society, our social system, are still a very long way from the application of this form of labour on a broad, really mass scale. But the very fact that this question has been raised, and raised both by the whole of the advanced proletariat (the Communist Party and the trade unions) and by the state authorities, is a step in this direction. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/apr/11.htm
over here. Budget 2015: tax credit claimants will be up to £1,000 a year worse off, says IFS http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/09/living-wage-will-leave-tax-credit-claimants-1000-worse-off-says-ifs
